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Touch the Soil News #624

Last week we published a news piece – #618 Insects as Animal Feed. In recent financial news, a global leader in recycling food and other waste through fly larvae (maggots) just received $10 million in funding to build over 200 fly larvae recycling farms around the world.

AgriProtein in partnership with Christof Industries has engineered a high-tech blueprint for facilities that use fly larvae to recycle food waste. The larvae then become food for fish, chickens and pet food. The two companies say they can build out high volume (low cost) fly farms anywhere in the world. And, they are going globetrotting to Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas.

Presently, AgriProtein (located in South Africa) can recycle up to 91,000 tons of organic waste a year to produce up to 7,000 tons of insect meal and oil.

Each fly farm will employ an army of 8.5 billion black soldier flies. The larvae from these flies will munch through 250 tonnes (2,250 lbs. per tonne) of organic waste every day to produce 14 tonnes of meal and almost 6 tonnes of oil each day.

The two companies are trying to solve the unsustainable use of fishmeal as food for farmed chickens and fish as fisheries are being compromised. In addition, the up-cycling of food and other organic waste through the fly farms will reduce the global problem of food waste.